Saturday, January 28, 2017

Field Day and TypingMaster

Dear 3C Families,
Athletic Field Day is fast approaching on February 9 and we, as a class, are beginning to get excited. I announced today that our team is Macedonia and our color this year is white. To build team spirit, I thought it would be a lot of fun to make designed shirts that we can all wear. I am willing to order the shirts. If you are willing to send in $10 for a shirt that would be greatly appreciated. With Field Day around the corner if you could send it in by Tuesday January 31 or Wednesday February 1 I would appreciate it. 

I left the homework load pretty light this weekend, but as we have not had the opportunity to go to TypingMaster since school resumed, if your student wants to and you have time, I would love to hear that they practiced typing on a computer a little bit this weekend. A link to TypingMaster is here: 

  https://online3.typingmaster.com/login?id=a7cayadp8 
 
 I will be assigning a typing assignment next week, which will be due at the end of the week in order for them to get more practice with typing as well. The students have been writing their own story and I have told them that I would like to see it typed up.

In other news we have started an experiment in science, where we have planted seeds and will be watching the effect of sunlight vs artificial light on the plants as they grow for the next month. The students were very excited to plant the seeds on Friday and I'm hoping to see their enthusiasm throughout the experiment and as we continue to learn about light.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Carnahan

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Have a Good Weekend

We had a lot of fun on Friday learning about how light reflects and refracts, as well as learning how the eye works and experimenting with how our eyes work together to give us a 3-D picture of the world. We got to read chapter 6 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and learned some new vocabulary such as: treason, fraternizing, Imperial, and differ. We talked a little bit about what happens on Inauguration Day and why it is always a historic day for our country. We also had our class picture and everyone looked great for it!

I got the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe quiz from Wednesday grades and sent that home with the students Friday. While the students overall did a good job on the test I noticed that as a class we had some weaknesses in using context clues to figure out words, understanding figurative language, and in identifying parts of speech in real life examples. Those will definitely be some literary devices we work on in the upcoming weeks as we continue to read. If you want to help work on those things from home, we will especially be focusing on parts of speech, similes, metaphors, personification, and summarizing what they have read in their own words. And please encourage your student to return to the text as a reference. They will be allowed to use their books during all Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe quizzes and tests and becoming familiar with the text as well as learning how to go back to it for answers will help them further on the tests.

HOMEWORK 1/20:
Reading 40 minutes
Lesson 12 final paragraph
Inauguration Day packet

Have a great weekend!
~Miss Carnahan

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Welcome Back

Last week was a lot of fun, seeing how hard the students worked on their Rome projects and prepared their presentations. They all did a wonderful job and I was so proud of their knowledge on their diverse topics as well as their insightful questions asked after each presentation. While there were a few questions that were asked every time (how long did it take you; what was your favorite part; and why did you choose this topic?) many of the questions showed genuine interest in each topic presented.

I'm a little saddened to say that our unit on Rome has ended, but it is with utmost delight that I can say we have begun learning about the Vikings and I'm sure the students will enjoy their history and culture nearly as much as they enjoyed learning about Roman history and culture.

We will also begin a new unit in Science tomorrow on light and how the eye works. I'm hoping to fit in some good discussions and basic experiments on how light works throughout this unit to get the students thinking about and really engaged in the subject.

We have MAP testing happening this week, which is a school-wide computer test, to gauge the students' progress. We took the initial tests at the beginning of the school year, and are in the midst of the mid-year tests. Because of this our schedule got a little interrupted today. We will be back on track tomorrow, starting with a new routine of visiting the school library on Tuesday mornings!

We started reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" today in class. I will be putting up volunteer sign-ups some time this afternoon for reading groups on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:25-1:10pm. If you are fingerprint cleared and would like to come volunteer in the classroom, reading groups are something the students look forward to daily. 

HOMEWORK 1/9:
20 Minutes of reading
Spalding 10 words 3x (I accidentally skipped a word today but they will be responsible for knowing that word too. We will go over "cousin" tomorrow in class)
Finish reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (p 9-10)
The Viking World worksheet
Week 21 Day 1
Poem "Dream Variation" due February 1

~Miss Carnahan